We’ve found the cheapest (and prepaid) mobile broadband card in America. And, we’re going to tell you how to lock it in.

Really, it boils down to three simple steps. The Nokia 3555 is now available on T-Mobile Prepaid for only $29.99. It’s their first 3G prepaid phone. And, it’s no secret that the $1/day Sidekick Prepaid (unlimited data) plan works with any phone. Combined with the FCC legalizing phone as modem on data plans (don’t shoot the messenger, T-Mobile), you’ve got $1/day mobile broadband tethering.

Here’s how to do it. It’s really no different than using an iPhone on the Sidekick Data Plan:

Christopher Price is the Founding Editor of PhoneNews.com. Today, he leads the team building Console, Inc. - a new kind of Android™ device. He still likes to pontificate... a lot. You can visit his personal blog at ChristopherPrice.net.

Cricket is, unfortunately, not a national carrier. It’s not America-wide.

Dans, we have corrected for the lack of HSDPA, but your comment is incorrect as well. T-Mobile uses a custom band-type. You can’t “buy any cheap variety HSDPA modem.” And they say… oh, wait, we’re above saying “and they say” sarcasm, sorry. We’d love to see your future six years of reporting though.

A “cheap variety HSDPA modem” wouldn’t work on T-Mobile 3G. Only T-Mobile USA runs on UMTS 1700 and 2100 MHz (simultaneously, no less, hence the need for both bands). Only T-Mobile USA’s (new, highly-priced) aircard would work in that instance.

And yes, said card would work on Sidekick Prepaid, but that’s out of the scope of this article as it’s no longer “cheap” when factoring in the card.

T-Mobile Prepaid does not roam on AT&T, though T-Mobile Postpay and EasyPay do. Your phone would fall back to EDGE speeds, as AT&T uses an incompatible UMTS band-type (850/1900 MHz versus 1700+2100MHz).

Finally, you may want to check to see if you have T-Mobile 3G coverage in your area. If not, you’re better off getting a more advanced EDGE-only phone, like an older Windows Mobile phone (HTC Wizard comes to mind) or an original iPhone.

dam i hate when ignorant people try to tell someone how to do his job. i swear i dont go to websites that i dont like, why these haters come and talk shit about how much they hate a site is beyond me. at least get a clue about what the hell your talking about before you call yourself correcting somebody.

Chris, that’s interesting. That seems pretty slow. I have already jailbroken my iPhone 3G (not s), so I probably just need to do the PDANet tethering. I just don’t want to get nailed by AT&T, so I’m not doing the tethering hack, since I don’t know how they are/will be charging for that.

Also, it’s not $1/day USED like typical prepaid, after I read everything. So basically your charge is going to be $28-$31/month. I was so excited about it, because I thought it was only on the days you used it. 🙁 I’d do the Virgin prepaid card, but it’s on Sprint’s network, and I switched from Sprint to AT&T because of the coverage issue in rural areas I visit (family and gf’s family).

AT&T can’t tell who is using the tethering hack. It forces data to go through the standard APN. Even if you exceed 5 GB, they can’t charge you.

I know I’ve noted AT&T breaking the law (re: Material Change Disputers being sent to debt collectors), but I haven’t seen a single instance of a tetherer getting charged on iPhone (or any other data-plan device).

The Sidekick Prepaid plan is billed daily, regardless of how much data you use (0KB up to 10GB). However, you can alleviate that by going to t-mobile.com and turning the plan off. You can turn the Sidekick Plan on or off daily… so if you know you won’t use it for a few days, turning it off at t-mobile.com will save you a few bucks.

When AT&T enables the functionality, a plan change will be detected, and AT&T will either “push” an APN change, or there will be a protocol for iTunes to update its carrier configuration file. The carrier config file can force tethering on, though Apple patched that in iTunes, so you have to use a web-generated CCF.

This may be partly why AT&T is lagging on getting tethering plans out there. Their billing system has to interact with iTunes or push the right strings to the device, to unlock tethering. Really, all this is just to check a box in a plist file… it’s nowhere near as secure as CDMA carriers which have their own NAI for tethering, which eventually will make it easy to spot people “abusing” data.

Edit: GSM purists would argue that the right backend/HLR configuration would provide as much validity as NAI on CDMA, but it’s really a moot point. Anyone who wants to can jailbreak the device and flow data through the regular login… just like the FCC said it was legal for consumers to hack away at.

Of course, I’m using the term abuse in the carrier’s eyes, but you get the idea…

Yes, that mobile config file will work (again, you have to use the web generators, as the iTunes upload path no longer works… iTunes knows to reject the files from the iPhone Configuration Utility that have tethering enabled). I would expect Apple to draw ire from the carriers though, so iPhone OS 3.1 may block that route eventually. Jailbreaking will still get around it though, probably.

Second Edit: And no, an iTunes Sync doesn’t break the hack. iTunes isn’t smart enough to check to see that you have a hacked CCF installed. It’s just smart enough to prevent someone from dragging-and-dropping CCFs onto the iTunes icon. Why they stopped there, and didn’t implement what I just described to block the web generators, I have no idea. Maybe Apple is tired of putting up with AT&T’s lag, maybe they want to appease the savvy hackers to keep them from defecting to Android/Symbian.

[…] Following our coverage last week, where we broke ground on how to (legally) use the Nokia 3555 as a mobile broadband card on T-Mobile Sidekick Prepaid, T-Mobile has decided to shut down all access to non-Sidekick devices […]

I have a blackjack II with unlimited internet, how can i “tether” my phone to give my laptop internet. (I cant afford to buy the card rite now) im not too good with computers so if it is possible, step by step instructions would be greatly appreciated.